I knock on the door of Silas’s office. “Si?”
When he doesn’t respond, I push the door open. “You didn’t come to breakfast.”
He always comes to breakfast. Always. One of the traditions we’ve kept from our dad. When we’re together, we eat together.
But as he glances up from his desk, I stop. “What is it?”
My older brother looks like he hasn’t slept at all. Dark circles sit beneath his eyes. “I told Stasi. About dad.”
I digest the information slowly, settling down in the chair in front of his desk. Guilt swoops, low in my stomach. I still haven’t apologized. I haven’t seen her since yesterday’s little incident in the hall. “Right.”
He sighs, sweeping a hand over his face. “I’m fucking this up, Rafe.”
I study him. My brother is the last person to open up, to share anything about himself with us. And I know why. “You don’t have to carry everything on your shoulders, you know.”
He gives me a wry look, and I shake my head. “We knew this was going to be hard. Having her here.”
Silas purses his lips. “We did. But… I didn’t expect her, Rafe.”
I turn the words over in my mind. But I know what he means. “We expected a brat.”
He nods. We expected a spoiled, demanding princess. We thought she’d changed. But what we got was the same Stasi we remember. Strong, quiet, taking everything we throw at her and managing to give us hell whilst working her damn ass off. And we’re all struggling to reconcile it with the knowledge of what she’s done.
“It wasn’t just us,” I point out. “Ella Cooper, Silas. She left us, she went there, and we know what happened.”
“Do we?” he says slowly. “Kit seems pretty convinced we have it wrong. And she doesn’t act like someone who’s used to being waited on hand and foot.”
My jaw tightens. Kit and I are rarely at odds, and to be so now irritates the hell out of me. “He always sees the best in everyone.”
Silas nods, slowly. “And… maybe he’s right.”
I suck in a breath, and he looks up at me. “She was devastated, Rafe. When I told her about dad. She – she couldn’t even look at me. You can’t fake that kind of reaction. I could see the guilt written all over her face. None of her actions fit with what we think we know.”
He hesitates. “And… I need to tell you something. About that night.”
As he speaks, my hand tightens on the arm of my chair. Tightens until I hear the wood snap. “You threw her out?”
My voice rises, and Silas glances at me. “I found her on the floor,” he says slowly. “All the jewelry was there. But… it’s possible that she was putting it back. And the more she’s here, the more I watch her… the more I think that I might have gotten it wrong.”
Neither of us hear the door open. But Silas’s head jerks up, and I turn to see Kit in the doorway. He scans us, his face set. “You did get it fucking wrong.”
But he doesn’t sound surprised. Silas’s eyes raise. “You already knew?”
He nods. “She told me. And asked me not to blame you.”
My body feels cold. Cold, and then hot, waves crashing over me, my heart tightening like a fist. “We couldn’t have gotten it that wrong.”
Kit glares at me. “We didn’t even stop to think about it before we went for her. We walked into that fucking throne room, and she thought we were there to help. Did you know that?”
We both stare at him.
Silas sounds hoarse. “What?”
Kit crosses his arms. “She thought we were there to speak up for her, as a character witness. Nobody else had. She had nobody else. But when we turned up, we just kicked her down again.”
My stomach twists, flipping over itself. “We didn’t know. We still don’t know. Not for certain.”
“I know,” Kit roars the words, his face angrier than I have ever seen it. “I know. And if you can’t pull your fucking heads out of your asses long enough to realize how much we have fucked this up, then I don’t know what else there is to say.”
She had nobody else.
And if Kit is right, if Silas is telling the truth about what happened that night and she didn’t want to leave… fuck.
Silas is silent. Both Kit and I look to him. As we have always done. But our oldest brother is not infallible. And he looks so tired, so uncertain.
And I remember how he looked, that night. With his arms wrapped around our father’s body, not letting go until Kit coaxed him to stand up. And then he took a breath, and he focused on us. He woke up the next morning and dragged us both to breakfast, refusing to let us sink into the pit of grief that hovered over us all. He found Ellen, bringing her in to keep the house going, to keep it a home.
He kept us going, pushing down his own grief to give ours the space to air.
So I don’t ask him. Instead, I think it over in my head. “Let’s invite them to dinner.”
Both of them look at me as though I’ve lost my mind, and I clarify.
“Ella Cooper. Crispin. Have them over for dinner. I want to see how she acts around Stasi.”
I can see them both considering it, but the more I think of it, the more I become set. I want to see Ella Cooper close up, see if I can get through that sweet exterior, flip it over to see what’s crawling beneath.
And if Kit is right, if Silas is right… then I’m going to take her down.
Finally, they both nod.
“She may not want to come,” Silas points out, but Kit shakes his head. His eyes meet mine, gleaming, and I know we’re on the same page again.
“She’ll come.”
I clear my throat. “I’ll make the arrangements when I’m in the city later.”
Silas frowns. “You’re going again? Is something wrong?”
I half-shrug. “Some of the men are causing issues. Laz Mayhew is mouthing off about how we’re losing our grip. It’s having a ripple effect, nothing I can’t handle. But… I don’t like the man. I’ve heard things.”
Silas sits up at that. “Have him come here instead. It’ll piss him off to travel so far from the city, put him on edge, and we can make a decision from there.”
I consider it. I don’t particularly want him here, in our home, but he has a point. It really will piss him off, and I’m not in the mood to pander to the man. “You want to join?”
“I could use a distraction,” Silas says. “If you don’t mind, that is.”
I blink, as he defers to me. “It’s your business.”
“But they’re your men,” he says pointedly. “And you work well with them. I won’t overstep.”
I can feel myself straighten at the approval in his tone. “I’d welcome it.”
“Good.” And when he offers me a smile, I wonder. Silas raises an eyebrow when he sees me staring, and I cough out a laugh at the silent question. “You just… you seem different.”
He stares at me for a moment. “Maybe that’s not a bad thing.”
No. Maybe it’s not.
Maybe we could all do with a little change. And as I leave, I decide to find the person I suspect is responsible for my older brother’s softening.
After a phone call to an irritated Laz to confirm his attendance this evening, I go on the hunt.
And when I find her, I have to smile at the irritated mutters coming from the bathroom.
“Fucking men. Disgusting.”
I wince, but I slide my head around the door. Stasi is on her knees, scrubbing the inside of the shower cubicle. Her head whips around to stare at me, and then she looks back down at her work. “What do you want, Rafe?”
But she doesn’t sound as fierce as she normally does. A little cautious, perhaps.
I can’t say that I blame her. “Can I… speak with you?”
She continues her scrubbing. “Do I get a choice?”
“Yes,” I say softly. “I’ll leave, if you would rather I didn’t.”
She turns back to me, then. Strands of hair cling to her forehead, and she pushes them back as a crease appears between her eyebrows.
“That makes a change,” she says, watching me. I wait for her to toss the sponge into her bucket and get to her feet. “What is it? Is Kit okay?”
The sudden concern in her voice for my twin makes my throat tighten. “He’s fine. Everything is fine.”
“Oh.” She wraps her arms around herself. “Okay. Well… I’m listening.”
Sliding my hands into my pockets, I rock back on my heels. “I’m sorry, Stasi.”
Her head jerks up, and she regards me warily. “You’re sorry? What for?”
I hesitate. Everything, I want to say. It’s on the tip of my tongue.
But… I’m still not certain. Not certain enough to offer her that part of me.
Not when she already broke it once before. Whatever happened that night… she still lied to us. My father brought Angelica, brought her, into our home, and they lied to us over and over again.
But there are still some things I need to atone for.
“For making you believe that I would ever ask you to fuck me in exchange for favors,” I say quietly. I don’t sugar coat the words. “I never want you to think that we – that I – would take advantage of you like that, while you’re here.”
Stasi swallows, still hugging her arms around herself. Her cheeks flush lightly. “I… I didn’t really think you would. But it still hurt, Rafe.”
Fuck, if the small shake in her voice doesn’t hit me straight in the chest. “I will never, ever say it again,” I say hoarsely. “And I never want you to feel that you aren’t safe here.”
She looks at me, then. “I do feel safe here. Even if…,”
She stumbles over the words. “Even if I’m a – a servant. I know… I understand things are different now. And this is your home.”
“It was your home, too, once.” The words slip out, and she tips her head back. For a moment, I see the pain on her face.
“No, it wasn’t,” she whispers. “Maybe it felt like that. To both of us. But I was always just… passing through.”
I don’t want to have this conversation in the doorway. So I stroll over to the bench opposite it, taking a seat and patting it.
“Please,” I say, when she hesitates. And when Stasi settles beside me, I take a moment.
“Tell me,” I say finally. I don’t look at her, leaning forward to rest my elbows on my knees. “Please. I know you told Kit. And Silas… he already knew.”
Her head whips towards me. “He told you.”
Nodding, I turn my face to hers. “Please,” I breathe. “Tell me. Not just that night, but… but all of it. How it came about, Stasi. I need to know.”
It’s eaten me up for ten years, not knowing how far the deception went.
I need to know if every part of her that I ever saw was a lie.
“Was it always planned?” I choke out the words. “Or was it just a… a spur of the moment thing?”
She closes her eyes, her voice barely a whisper. “I hoped it would never happen at all.”
And as I fall silent, Anastasia begins to speak. Of her mother, and their past. The different houses, the schools, the names.
“Anastasia Cooper.” I twist towards her, and she grimaces.
“I really hate that name.”
“How many have you had? Do you remember your original name?”
She shrugs, helplessly. “I’m not sure, truthfully. Angelica… she changed it all the time. Maybe to stop people from catching up with us. I don’t know. She’d normally change it to whoever we were with at the time, but… she never changed it to Tate.”
I close my eyes at the wistful tone in her voice. “So you never had a home?”
“I did, once.” She clears her throat. “When my father was alive, we were… we were happy. But he died, and the money disappeared too quickly. My mother had expensive taste. So she found someone who could give her what she wanted. And then, when she became bored, or they cut her off, she would move on to somebody else.”
A leech. Dragging her daughter along behind her.
It’s a world apart from the peaceful childhood my father gave us.
I study my hands. “I wish you’d told me. Told any of us.”
She sighs. “I wish that I’d done a lot of things differently. But that… I have regretted it every day, Rafe. I’m sorry. And… I’m sorry about your dad. William was a kind man.”
The guilt in her voice surprises me. “That wasn’t your fault.”
“Wasn’t it?” She’s staring down when I turn to her.
“No,” I say gently. “I don’t think there’s any use in proportioning blame for something that may well have happened anyway. And in any case, if there were any blame, it would rest solely with Angelica. What… what happened to her?”
Stasi’s shoulders stiffen. “Cancer.”
Here we sit. Both of us orphans. But I always had my brothers to lean on.
Who did you have, Stasi?
She jerks, but her fingers curl around my palm when I slide my hand over hers. “I’m sorry about your mother. That was when you were living with Ella Cooper?”
I’m not intentionally prying, more following a trail of thought. But her hand stiffens in mine, sliding away. “I should… I should get back to work, Rafe.”
When she stands, I follow her lead, regret tightening my throat as she looks up at me. “Thank you for telling me.”
“Thank you for the apology,” she murmurs in return.
I half-smile. “I’m sorry for the floors, too.”
She snorts a laugh. “Are you? Because you would never have apologized for that ten years ago.”
The smile grows a little deeper, the corners of my lips tipping up. “The jokes were always more fun when you were next to me, you know.”
Her answering smile is sad. “Everything was more fun when you were next to me, Rafe.”
She turns away before I can respond. It takes me seconds to recover from the emotional hammer in my chest, seconds before I can call out to her, trying to get my thoughts in order when she rips them apart with every interaction we have. “Stasi.”
She turns. “Yes?”
“We have someone coming for dinner,” I say softly, holding her eyes. “A business associate. There are some things that we need to discuss with him. But… I would stay in your room tonight. I don’t want him to see you.”
Her eyes shutter, and I wonder if she understands my meaning as she turns away, her tone subdued. “All right.”
Maybe she thinks I’m ashamed of her. But I miss the chance to tell her otherwise, as the bathroom door closes.
Besides. How could I possibly explain the feelings in my chest to her, when I don’t understand them myself?
